Freestone County, Texas Reflections Steward’s Mill and its relationship with Troy/Pine Bluff by Bill Young In the past couple of months, several things have happened to me which I was not expecting. The first thing is I lost my left hip, bone against bone. Not only is this painful but the problem has forced me to walk with the aid of a cane and a very prominent limp. In turn this has limited me to very short walks which has prevented me from doing much archeological or cemetery work. I have purchased a couple of light weight chairs and if I can remember to take them with me, I am able to do some limited survey work. Since I also have congestive heart failure, the last word I had from my cardiologist is I probably cannot go through any more surgery. We will see in the near future. Then to add insult to injury, I came down with the shingles three weeks ago. Absolutely one of the worst things I have experienced! I itch but I cannot scratch! I can’t sleep very much nor is food very important. So far I have lost 14 pounds which I needed to lose but I don’t recommend this current method. Each day I start off thinking it is a little better but by mid-day there is no difference. I mentioned this problem to a friend of mine in Austin who informed me his mother-in-law had the same problem for five months. I hope this will not be the case with me! Last week I wrote about the community of Troy/Pine Bluff located on the west bank of the Trinity River in Freestone County. This inland port played a very important role in the progress of growth for several counties located westward from the town, especially Freestone, Navarro and Limestone but other communities farther to the north and northwest. Most of the time, steamboats could go as far upriver as Troy but any other shipping points farther upstream were very limited depending on the water table within the river channel. Since the boats could reach Troy/Pine Bluff, a lot of cargo going in either direction was either received or shipped from Troy. However Troy/Pine Bluff was located in a rather isolated area with the river on one side and fairly steep and uneven hills located on the other three sides. There also were several streams in the area which restricted ingress and egress to the community if it happened to be the rainy season. Therefore there was a direct need for a distribution center located farther to the west, closer to the blackland prairies, where material could be distributed in many different directions. The community of Steward’s Mill filled this need successfully. Founded in 1853 by G. Washington Steward, who had built a double pen log cabin and a water- powered flour mill, the community was named after its founder. In the years to follow, Mr. Steward built a general store and a cotton gin. Then a William Bonner built a shoe factory and a saw mill. In the 1880s, Steward’s Mill boasted it had a church, a school, a post office and a population of 70 with a service radius of seven miles. However the most important contribution for Steward’s Mill was the fact it was a major distribution center for goods outbound such as cotton, corn and tobacco and a tremendous amount of inbound staples meant for cities such as Corsicana. I feel sure material meant for Navarro County and other local points would have made it to the settlers one way or another but the location of Steward’s Mill was an ideal jumping off point for much of day-to-day important necessities. It is a shame there aren’t any shipping manifests/ledgers for either inbound or outbound goods in existence today. It would be nice to see what transpired in a single year so we would have some idea just how important Troy/Pine Bluff and Steward’s Mill played in those early days. With the advent of the coming of the railroads to the area, boat traffic declined rapidly and in turn, Troy/Pine Bluff faded into the past. However, there are still a few remnant structures of Steward’s Mill still standing. Bill, It has been several years since we went to the community of Steward’s Mill and the last time we visited the location, the old store was still standing but slowly going downhill. By now, it may be gone but we need to verify this. In the archeological report I have been using for most of the information about navigation on the Trinity River, the archeologists with Southern Methodist University published a small map on which they marked an approximate location for each community and landing listed in the book. Not only did they mark the location of Troy/Pine Bluff and Steward’s Mill, they also illustrated an approximate location of the road connecting the two settlements. I was surprised to see the two communities were not connected in a more or less straight line. Instead the road had a very large curve forming a half moon shape. Looking at the U.S.G.S. quad maps for the region, it must have been necessary to swing the road farther to the south in order for the wagons to be able to cross several of the larger creeks between the Troy and Steward’s Mill such as Big and Little Brown creeks. The old saying stated “the shortest distance between two places is a straight line” did not always apply if the general lay of the land contained large hills and numerous creeks. Next week: Discrepancies between local history books and archeological reports.